Garnet Barnes

Name: Garnet Barnes

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Grade: 12

School: George Hunter High School

Hobbies and Interests: Roleplaying, Pokémon, video games, dogs, softball, basketball

Appearance: Garnet is 5'4" and 140lbs, with a body that has some light muscle definition in her arms and legs. She is Caucasian and lightly freckled across her face and arms. Her hair is strawberry blonde, straight and long, although she usually wears it up in a low-effort ponytail rather than trying to style it. The features of her diamond-shaped face are plain; her eyebrows are pale enough blonde as to barely be visible, she has a thin blade of a nose, and bucked teeth. Her eyes are green and she is slightly short-sighted, so wears prescription glasses, with relatively small and lightweight lenses but thick black frames. Garnet wears a little makeup, putting most of her emphasis around the eyes with mascara and various different shades of eyeshadow. Both of her lobes are pierced and she wears numerous pieces of video-game based jewelry. Her fashion is basic, usually wearing jeans with a t-shirt or tank top, often with a game slogan or design on the front. Her most distinct item of clothing is her signature hat, which she received custom-made for her fifteenth birthday. It is baseball cap made to match the colour scheme of the Pokémon Arcanine, orange and black with a fluffy cream trim, as well as little ears sticking out of the top.

When she was abducted, Garnet was wearing her glasses and hat, a combined t-shirt/tank top in grey and purple, a pair of jeans, and hi-top sneakers. She also had Pokéball earrings in each ear.

Biography: Garnet is the elder of two children to Edna and Steven, who originally met while working in retail. After a few years as colleagues, the two of them slept together on a drunken night out. Deciding to start dating after that, the pair were very surprised to learn that Edna was already pregnant a couple of months into their relationship. While Garnet was born healthy and without complications, the couple's meagre resources meant that they were forced to move in with Steven's parents. A very loving family, Garnet's grandparents doted on her from the time she entered their home, sharing the burden of childcare between themselves and Edna.

Garnet's childhood was very stable; her dad worked hard to pull his weight and started to hunt high and low for new opportunities, eventually gaining employment in a bank. Meanwhile her mom took on part-time work in various odd jobs, eventually settling on dogwalking. Her grandparents were ever-present, and they and her parents both encouraged Garnet's developing precociousness. Cheerful even in preschool, Garnet grew into a bright and sunny child who was always looking to meet new people and make friends, although she did have to be taught that she shouldn't always be trying to be the centre of attention. Her outgoing nature didn't stop with just humans either, Garnet learned to love animals from her mom's new profession and soon started to adore dogs, wanting to play with every last one she saw. Once again, though, her enthusiasm had to be curbed with reminders that not all dogs wanted to be petted or appreciated a squealing preteen running up to them.

Her mother also introduced her to another interest of hers, video games. An avid fan of all things electronic, Edna often spent her free time on a well-worn Nintendo DS or a very elderly PS2, and happy to keep her mom company, Garnet watched what her mom was up to. Happy to see Garnet taking an interest, her mom let her try out different games. Garnet was drawn to the bright and colorful side of the library with titles like the Mario series, but was immediately enraptured by Pokémon, as it let her fulfil her dreams of having pets of her own. When Garnet was a little older, her mom also showed her another game, Final Fantasy IX. She was stunned to see that there was a princess in the game that shared her name, and was in fact her namesake. Garnet was delighted, although she had a hard time actually playing FFIX and needed a lot of help from her mom to get anywhere with it.

When Garnet was ten, her younger sister Angie was born. This came a year after Garnet and her parents moved out from her grandparents' home and into a new abode, the change financed by Steven securing a promotion to a team leader in his bank's call centre. Angie was much more planned out, and though initially alarmed at the idea she wouldn't have her parents all to herself, Garnet soon warmed up to the idea of having her very own little sister. By the time Angie was born, Garnet was determined to be the best big sister she possibly could. In her own enthusiastically well-meaning way she tried to help her parents out, though her efforts met with somewhat mixed success when she wasn't enlisting her grandmother's aid.

Middle school was a difficult transition for Garnet as she found that just being bright and friendly wasn't always enough to win her age group over any more, particularly when she did engage in conversation it was with motormouthed gushing over whatever cool new thing she'd learned or exciting section of a video game she'd played. Initially quite crestfallen, Garnet adjusted by finding likeminded friends who shared similar interests to her and were happy to hear about just how many Jigglypuffs she'd caught the previous night. Being rebuffed, however, did have a lasting effect on Garnet. She started to develop aspirations of being famous; in exactly what she wasn't completely clear on, but she reasoned if she became a star for something-or-other, then even those friendships that seemed out of grasp would become open to her. She cycled through several ambitions over the next couple of years. First, she wanted to be an astronaut, then a games designer or a singer. She very much liked the idea of acting, but when she tried to join the school drama club, found that she disliked anything that wasn't improv and hated having to learn lines. She tried sports next, but had two left feet when it came to cheerleading and became swiftly bored by track and field. Garnet then dabbled in softball and basketball, which she was drawn to for being team games which she could enjoy with big groups of people simultaneously. She decided to stick with both, managing to fit them both into a quickly-expanding schedule since they were a spring and winter sport respectively. Although theatre hadn't really panned out, Garnet's dad had picked up on how much she enjoyed adlibbing and making a character in her head, and brought her into an old hobby of his, Dungeons and Dragons. A bit uncertain about the idea of playing a video game without the video part, Garnet was convinced to give it a try by her mom, and the family played their first session together with Steven as the DM. She quickly warmed up to the hobby and soon threw herself wholeheartedly into playing, albeit with occasional reminders needed that rules and dice still applied to the game.

As she grew older, Garnet found that her interests and open enthusiasm about them were giving her a reputation as something of a geek. Rather than growing upset or deciding she needed to change for the sake of being popular, Garnet embraced her own nerdiness, unwilling to give up on the hobbies she loved just because others looked down on them. She started wearing Pokémon shirts to school and would be right at the forefront of the crowd chatting excitedly about the latest Mario or Zelda release. This strengthened her bonds with her existing friends and for those who drifted away from her, Garnet told herself that they couldn't have had that much in common anyway. Having these friends helped Garnet when it came to her schoolwork and studying, as with her numerous hobbies she just didn't have that much time to dedicate to school. Receiving help whether it was by group studying, sending her class notes or reminding her of the material allowed Garnet to keep her grades at a middling level, enough to keep her parents happy. At home, Garnet started to help out her mom by taking on some of her dogwalking responsibilities to let her focus on Angie, and would frequently run through the neighbourhood with a fistful of dog leashes, or go to parks and do her utmost to play with four dogs at once. She also tried to be the cool big sister to Angie, and grew close to her by being loud and silly and playing plenty of make-believe. Garnet developed her interests further as she progressed through high school, firstly by finding a group to play D&D with. She naturally gravitated towards bards and rogues, flamboyant personages who could be the face of the party, but then, in an effort to stop trying to take centre stage all the time, took up a barbarian character. Garnet captured her own imagination with the character, and has now played her for almost four years, with her scenery-chewing rages being truly a sight to behold. Garnet settled comfortably into a backup role on the softball team, as while she enjoyed playing she didn't really feel like she fitted well into any one position, and now just sees the sport as mostly a social undertaking. Conversely, her skill in basketball continued to develop and after she missed the cut for the girl's basketball team in her freshman year, Garnet found the failure lit a fire under her to improve. Reattempting the following year, Garnet forced her way onto the bench through sheer hard work, and is now seen as a dependable relief scorer on a talented team. Garnet has also continued to play video games, including each new generation of Pokémon as it comes out. She dabbled with battling competitively online for a while, but couldn't wrap her head around all the complicated strategies, and now greatly prefers to collect parties of the cutest Pokémon possible and spend hour after hour in game playing with them. Her greatest favourites are of course the canine Pokémon, and she has almost an entire wall in her room dedicated to Growlithe and Arcanine posters and drawings.

Garnet is incredibly close to her family. She still sees her grandparents on a regular basis, living only a couple of blocks' walk away and in easy visiting distance. She shares hobbies and interests with both her parents, and she has recently started showing Angie the ropes in their family D&D game, which is still a regular Tuesday night tradition. Garnet regularly helps her mom with dogwalking and plays video games with her all the time; they have beaten FFIX together with half the party in either of their control. She also continues to have a close friendship group with a number of her peers, and even now is able to remain on good terms with a lot of people just by being so optimistic and cheerful all the time. She is both anticipating and dreading the end of her schooling career; she feels like she's about to step into a great big adventure, but also has little to no idea what she will do with herself when embarking on said adventure. Her ideas are as vague as always, and it has almost been enough for her to revisit her old 'get famous' plan.

Advantages: Garnet is a bright and upbeat individual who is generally fun to be around, and keeping those high spirits may be key to her maintaining stability during SOTF. Whilst known as a nerdy type, she's still generally well-liked and inoffensive enough that she will probably have an easy time finding allies. She is deceptively athletic, and along with the advantages that being in good condition carries, she may be able to take others by surprise who do not expect someone of her reputation to be in such good shape.

Disadvantages: Garnet has a hard time not being around other people and gets lonely when isolated. Moreover, in a group, she always has to be seen as active and contributing, even if she doesn't necessarily have that much of import to say; she could easily get on the nerves of people she really needs to be working with. Some people in general find her to be quite loud and annoying, and the dial isn't one Garnet knows how to turn down, if she was even aware in the first place. Garnet is impatient and not much for planning, tending to be easily distracted when problem-solving gets more complicated than solving the issue in front of her.

Designated Number: Female student No. 076

---

Designated Weapon: String of Mardi Gras beads

Conclusion: Life on the island can be a lonely one for the ill-prepared, G076. What to do about that, that's the only thing I can't teach you. We all need to figure out the answer for ourselves. So how are you going to survive? Are you going to sing your song? Our song? - Dennis Lourvey

'The above biography is as written by Namira. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Namira

Kills: Erika Stieglitz

Killed By: 

Collected Weapons: String of Mardi Gras beads (assigned weapon)

Allies: Nona Hart, Christina Rennes

Enemies: 

Mid-game Evaluation: 

Post-Game Evaluation: 

Memorable Quotes:

Threads
Below is a list of threads containing Garnet, in chronological order.

V7:
 * Something Better
 * His Whole Life Packed In Two Bags, Just Two Bags
 * We're Gonna Need a Better Boat
 * Know Their Names
 * I Came In The Name Of The Dead, To Bring My Neck To The Blade
 * Please Refrain
 * There Is No Passion, There Is Serenity
 * No Hell But The One We Made
 * Morning, Day 8 "
 * AAAAAAAAAAAAA
 * WWSD
 * Terminal Gardener
 * No Exit
 * Are You What I Think You Are?
 * +1 DETERMINATION
 * It all went wrong.
 * Certain Plan
 * More Than Truth
 * To Survive
 * Someday, she'll breathe again.
 * We Used To Get High Together
 * Two
 * There's Static In My Bloodstream

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Garnet Barnes. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''